Cultural Dessert

Friday, February 28, 2014

'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt

28 February 2014

“Life
is catastrophe” – that certainly seems to be true for Theodore
Dekker, the hero of Donna Tartt's third novel 'The Goldfinch'. Theo
is 13 years old when a visit to the Metropolitan Museum in New York
changes his life, as a terrorist bomb destroys a section of the
museum and kills Theo's mother. Theo emerges from the wreckage
carrying a famous painting, Carel Fabritius' 1654 masterpiece 'The
Goldfinch'. Theo's future becomes intertwined with the fate of the
painting, and his journey from New York to Las Vegas and Amsterdam,
through a succession of guardians, finding and losing friends and
soulmates, is thrilling and emotional. 'The Goldfinch', which I read
as an unabridged audio book narrated by David Pittu, is an epic work,
even longer than 'The Luminaries' by Eleanor Catton (reviewed here in
December 2013). If Eleanor Catton was channelling Wilkie Collins,
Donna Tartt is definitely a contemporary Charles Dickens. I felt her
wonderful second novel 'The Little Friend' – one of my favourite
recent American novels – created a Dickensian cast of characters.
'The Goldfinch' continues this approach, combining slightly
exaggerated but entirely believable characters with a Dickensian
coming of age plot. The orphaned Theo Dekker is a modern day Pip,
David Copperfield or Oliver Twist. His best friend, Boris, is his
Herbert Pocket – or maybe The Artful Dodger. Donna Tartt writes
beautifully with the adult Theo's first person narration reflecting
on his childhood in a way that makes you feel exactly what it must
have been like for him. This is often a harrowing experience as you
really feel Theo's pain, loneliness and despair. Tartt creates
empathy rather than sympathy so that, even when Theo commits
indefensibly stupid, cruel or criminal acts, you feel you would have
done exactly the same in his position. But 'The Goldfinch' is not a
miserable novel – it has a slow-burning thriller plot that builds
to a terrifying climax. And there is a wonderful twist about three
quarters of the way through, which I was terribly satisfied to have
spotted when the seeds were planted much earlier in the story. 'The
Goldfinch' is a long, and sometimes deliberately slow, novel but
expertly constructed, beautifully written and well worth investing
your time in.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

20 February 2014Marking
the weekend of St Valentine's Day with a concert about death (the
theme was actually love and death, but frankly it was mostly death)
didn't appear to be the Northampton Symphony Orchestra's wisest
marketing strategy. But we managed to attract a reasonable size of
audience who really seemed to appreciate our weighty, romantic
repertoire. I think this was the most ambitious programme we have
attempted for some time and it was incredibly enjoyable to play.
Rachmaninov's symphonic poem 'Die Toteninsel' ('The Isle of the
Dead') was inspired by a black and white photograph of a painting by
Arnold Böcklin which shows Charon, boatman of the Underworld, rowing
a coffin across the river Styx to a lonely island. The relentlessly
hypnotic 5/8 rhythm disconcertingly shifts from patterns of 2+3 to
3+2 as the boat shifts in the flow of the river. It's a gently
emotional meditation on death. We were then joined by the Australian
soprano Helena Dix to perform Mahler's song cycle 'Rückert Lieder' –
five settings of poems by Friedrich Rückert. The five songs are each
very different, varying from the playful to the dramatic to the
achingly beautiful. There is a style and a beauty in several of the
'Rückert Lieder' that is echoed in the 'Four Last Songs' by Richard
Strauss, written nearly 50 years later. The second half of our
concert started with the 'Prelude and Liebestod' from Wagner's
'Tristan und Isolde' with Helena Dix signing the part of Isolde –
the apogee of romantic music, a heart-rending climax of ecstasy and
tragedy. After which we had to dig deep in our reserves of emotional
stamina to perform the Richard Strauss tone poem 'Tod und Verklärung'
('Death and Transfiguration'). This remarkable piece, representing
the dying hours of a man reflecting on his past life before the soul
leaves his body, was written when the composer was barely 25 years
old. When we started rehearsing 'Tod und Verklärung' I mistook
references to 'the Superman motif', assuming that this somehow
related to Nietzsche and his concept of Übermensch from Also Sprach
Zarathustra (itself the subject of a tone poem by Richard Strauss). I
soon realised I had been somewhat over-intellectualising and that we
were actually talking about the bit that sounds remarkably like John
Williams' theme for the 1978 film 'Superman'! This heroic phrase,
with its glorious, drawn-out octave leap provides a stunning climax
in the middle of 'Tod und Verklärung' and then becomes the basis for
an ethereal, haunting, slow canon as life begins to seep away. It was
an emotionally exhausting performance that I thoroughly enjoyed being
part of.

Friday, February 14, 2014

'Through the Eyes of the Sun' by Belonoga

14 February 2014The
peculiarly beautiful vocal harmonies of Bulgarian choral music gained
widespread attention in the UK in 1986 with the release of 'Le
Mystère des Voix Bulgares' - a Grammy award winning album of
Bulgarian folk songs performed by the Bulgarian State Radio &
Television Female Vocal Choir. I first encountered this magical sound
in 1989 when Kate Bush featured the Trio Bulgarka on her album 'The
Sensual World'. The songs 'Deeper Understanding' and 'Rocket's Tail'
make gorgeous use of those strange scrunchy Bulgarian harmonies. My
favourite example of the Bulgarian vocal sound is the 2003 album
'Bulgarian Soul' in which the classical opera singer Vesselina
Kasarova revisits Bulgarian folk songs, backed by the Cosmic Voices
from Bulgaria – it's a really beautiful set of songs. More recently
I discovered the Eva Quartet – four young singers from the Mystère
Des Voix Bulgares choir. This week I have been listening to 'Through
the Eyes of the Sun' by Belonoga – a solo project by Eva Quartet
member Gergana Dimitrova. This album uses the Bulgarian singing style
in a sparse, new-age musical environment, mixing wordless vocals with
electronic and acoustic instruments, a variety of percussion and even
a didgeridoo! The effect is gentle, laid-back, mysterious and
beautiful but I missed the close harmonies of the multi-voice choirs
and the tunes are not so immediately catchy as the Bulgarian folk
songs featured in the earlier albums. Nevertheless this is an
interesting and very different collection of music.

Friday, February 07, 2014

'Tin Star' by Lindi Ortega

7 February 2014A
Canadian singer of Mexican and Irish descent might not seem an
obvious candidate to become a major star of American country music
but on her new album ‘Tin Star’, Lindi Ortega manages to sound
both like the "love child of Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash"
and a Nashville version of Amy Winehouse. She has a distinctive voice
with a compelling mix of power and vulnerability. ‘Tin Star’ is a
country rock album that encompasses a variety of styles from gentle
country ballad to jaunty rockabilly (‘All These Cats’) to
powerful rock’n’roll that has more than a hint of Arctic Monkeys
about it (‘I Want You’). This is instantly likeable music that
also seems to have staying-power.

About Me

Since September 2005 Robin Simpson has been Chief Executive of Voluntary Arts, which provides a universal voice for approximately 63,000 voluntary arts groups, across the UK and Ireland, involving more than 10 million participants in creative cultural activities. A keen amateur French horn player, Robin is currently a member of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra. Robin is a perennial ballroom dancing student, a frequent theatre-goer, an enthusiastic reader of contemporary fiction, an insatiable consumer of classical and world music and a keen blogger at www.culturalplayingfield.org and www.culturaldessert.blogspot.com